This is a version of Golden Rule-Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.Jesus taught that you should love God with all your heart,soul,strength,and mind;and that you should love your neighbour as yourself. Mk.12:31" You shall love your neighbour as yourself.There is no other commandment greater than these." First found in the Old Testament.Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate this commandment.
A man was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho.On the way,he was attacked by a gang of robbers.They took away all his belongings, beat him up and left him there to die.After some time,a priest and a Levite,a servant at the temple both came along the way.When they saw the man bleeding and dying,they were afraid and hurried on their way.
Later,a Samaritan passed the way.When he saw the injured man,he went to him,bandaged his wounds and covered him with his own cloth.Then he put the man on his donkey and took him to an inn.He hired a room there and looked after him.The next day,the samaritan gave the inn owner two silver coins and said,"Take care of this man.He is injured.If you spend more than what I have given to you,I will repay on my way back.After telling this story,Jesus asked,"What do you think,which of these three was a good neighbour to the injured man?" "The Samaritan was kind to injured man,"the lawyer replied. That's right,said Jesus, "Then go and be a good neighbour like him."
Loving your neighbour is the first and best choice among the three choices you have with regard to that person next door.The first choice is love.The second is hate and the third is indifference.Let us examine each choice,beginning with the third choice.Perhaps, you don't want to love your neighbour,because he is not good,but you don't want to hate him because you are a good person and you avoid negative emotions.So you are indifferent to your neighbour.But indifference or apathy is a cold emotion.Apathy is as negative as hatred.The line between hatred and apathy is very fine.If you meet your neighbour on the street and you ignore him,it's hardly a good and decent thing to do.
The second choice,hatred,will harm you as much as it hurts your neighbour,which leaves you with the first and the best choice-To love your neighbour. Honestly,loving an irksome neighbour is not as hard as it seems.It simply means respecting the person and thinking of his needs and desires as much as you would your own.
You won't be able to love yourself until you first love your neighbour.Whether we like it or not,a major part of our life will always centre on that of our neighbour's.Ask yourself some questions and you will see from the answers how important your neighbour is for your own peace and happiness.
Lev.19:17-18 " You shall not hate in your heart any one of your kin;you shall reprove your neighbour,or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people,but you shall love your neighbour as yourself:I am the Lord." These verses clearly says the importance of love your neighbour and love one another.
And you can't just stop at loving your immediate neighbour.You have got to love your neighbour's neighbour,too,and your, circle of love gets wider subsuming differences of community,state,nation,continents-encompassing the whole universe and beyond.Your heart is so big and so full of love,that its capacity to love is infinite;it's Divine.Love gives you joy and power and victory and hate brings in sorrow and powerlessness and defeat.
Different religions propound love of your neighbour as an important part of their teaching.But you don't have to be religious person to love your neighbour ,because love of your neighbour is a superb human emotion,not necessarily tied to any creed or religion.
Hindus believe that one should never do to others what would pain oneself;Islam says not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.The sikh faith asks you to treat others as you would like to be treated.the nature is only good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self is a precept of the Zoroastrian faith.Buddhists say,hurt not others with that which pains yourself.And Confucius said:Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.